Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site wucs.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!ihnp4!wucs!esk
From: esk@wucs.UUCP (Paul V. Torek)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: freedom and reason (attn russ, rich, & laura)
Message-ID: <861@wucs.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 28-Mar-85 19:23:31 EST
Article-I.D.: wucs.861
Posted: Thu Mar 28 19:23:31 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 29-Mar-85 06:01:38 EST
References: <362@aesat.UUCP> <5272@utzoo.UUCP> <137@ubvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: pvt1047@wucec1.UUCP (Paul V. Torek)
Organization: Washington U. in St. Louis, CS Dept.
Lines: 25
Keywords: world, man
Summary: depends on who, but not where   

In article <137@ubvax.UUCP> tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch) writes:
>Another funny assumption of this free will debate is that free will
>is a possession, some kind of {meta}physical capacity in us.  That can't
>be!  Free will is a *relation* between a person and her world (world: some
>bounded space-time continuum of possibility).  The question "does man
>have free will" should be answered, "depends on who and where -- which
>man[persons] and what world[worlds]".
>Tony Wuersch

Which person, yes, but which world, I'm not so sure.  Couldn't the same
constitution of me (my body), subject to the same physical laws, exist
in a "world" in which many other things were different?  It seems to me
that in any such world, "I" would have exactly the same amount of free
will as I do in the actual world.  Thus I think free will is indeed
a function of which person you talk about, but not which world.  There
is of course the related notion of "freedom" as political-economic-etc.
freedom, and what the world around me is like certainly matters for
*that* kind of freedom.  But that's not the same as "free will", i.e.
agency (being an agent).
--
"When there's something wrong
with the vogue ideas
who do you call?" 
	"ICONBUSTERS!"			--President, ICONBUSTERS,
					Paul V. Torek, wucs!wucec1!pvt1047